Jazz Articles about King Crimson

About King Crimson

Album Review

For a band that reinvents itself every decade or so, King Crimson has always treated New York as something closer to a proving ground than a tour stop. The city runs through the group's history, from the 1969 Fillmore East debut through the Larks' era sendoff at Central Park in 1974, six nights at the Savoy in 1981, later singled out as a high point, and a 2008 stand at the Nokia Theatre that marked drummer Gavin Harrison's arrival in ...

Album Review

King Crimson: Music is Our Friend: Live In Washington and Albany, 2021

Read "Music is Our Friend: Live In Washington and Albany, 2021" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
November 12, 2021

You probably know the old adage about assumptions. After seeing the current (slightly fluid) King Crimson lineup twice every time the perennially groundbreaking group made it to North American shores since 2014, with no Canadian dates available in 2021 and the COVID Delta variant running rampant across the United States, the decision was made to forego traveling south to the USA to catch the band. After all, with the band touring, for the first time, on double bills with the ...

Book Review

Failure to Fracture: Learning King Crimson's Impossible Song

by John Kelman
August 21, 2021

Failure to Fracture: Learning King Crimson's Impossible SongAnthony Garone322 PagesISBN: 978- 1949267457Stairway Press2021 Failure to Fracture: Learning King Crimson's Impossible Song. It's as clear a mission statement as might be found anywhere. But musician, guitarist, husband, father, son and high tech professional Anthony Garone has spent more than two decades striving to play a song described, at different times, by composer, King Crimson co-founder, guitarist and visionary Robert Fripp as “one ...

Album Review

King Crimson: The Complete 1969 Recordings

Read "The Complete 1969 Recordings" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 31, 2020

There will, inevitably, exist some cynics who will dispute the first comment about King Crimson's long-awaited The Complete 1969 Recordings box set, but it's difficult to imagine it being anything but the plain truth. This is, indeed, the definitive final word on the band's first lineup, collecting multiple versions of its earth-shattering 1969 Island Records debut, In the Court of the Crimson King: An Observation by King Crimson (from this point on, attributed to its current label, Panegyric), alongside sonically ...

Book Review

In the Court of King Crimson: An Observation Over 50 Years

by John Kelman
November 10, 2019

In the Court of King Crimson: An Observation Over 50 YearsSid Smith616 PagesISBN: 978-1916153004Panegyric Publishing2019 When it was first released in 2001, British scribe Sid Smith's In the Court of King Crimson (Helter Skelter Publishing) filled a major need for a band that was, at that time, touring in its double duo format, responsible for the some of the music reissued, earlier this year, in the Heaven & Earth: Live And In The ...

Book Excerpts

In the Court of King Crimson: An Observation Over 50 Years: Level Five, VIII

by Sid Smith
November 10, 2019

On November 15, 2019, as part of King Crimson's 50th Anniversary Celebration, Panegryic will be releasing Sid Smith's significant revision and expansion of his critically acclaimed bio, In the Court of King Crimson (Helter Skelter Publishing, 2001). More than merely adding what has gone on in the nearly 20 years since the original book was published, at nearly double its size, the 2019 edition of In the Court of King Crimson: An Observation Over 50 Years is a major revision ...

Album Review

King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King (50th Anniversary)

Read "In the Court of the Crimson King (50th Anniversary)" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 27, 2019

The passage of time is often defined by both forward motion and a growing collection of memories past; it's also measured by significant milestones that are either realized at the time or in subsequent years. At a recent Royal/Celebration Package event prior to King Crimson's Théâtre St-Denis performance in Montréal, Canada, guitarist and only remaining group co-founder, Robert Fripp, asked the question that he's queried more than once, in various forums: “Can music change the world?" While the ...